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Fax and Faxing in Linux

You will obviously need a modem, in most cases you laptop’s internal software modem will not work, so get an external one.

Become root:

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su-

Install the necessary fax software:

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yum install efax

Prepare:

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2

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chmod0666/dev/ttyS0

chmod777/var/spool/fax

touch/var/spool/fax/lock

chmod644/var/spool/fax/lock

You do need to be root past this point.

Print a file to fax from openoffice (should be installed) to postscript > send.ps

Convert to tiff:

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gs-q-dNOPAUSE-dBATCH-sDEVICE=tiffg3-sOutputFile=somefile.tiffsend.ps

Send a fax:

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efax-t[number]somefile.tiff

Create a file with a very basic fax receiving daemon script, fax.sh, with just two lines below, and place it in your ~/bin/ dir. (The formatter garbles the second line, so use one of the text formatter buttons to get the real code.)